Mac Pro sled-Plextor compatiblity

I was considering the new Plextor M5 Pro Extreme, price isn't bad for the 128GB version. I currently have an older Intel SSD drive installed inside an IcyDock adapter. The Plextor drive comes with a bracket and appears to be thinner- 9.5mm vs 7mm. Would my IcyDock adapter work with the new, thinner drive? Would their bracket fit onto our Mac HD sleds?

I prefer to use the current sleds and not house the drive in an optical bay.

2.5" drives have a standard. The Icy dock does not care unless the drive is hugely thick, like over 3/4 inch /20mm. The screws go in from the bottom or a fixed distance up the side.

It should all work out fine, except for the elephant in the room:

Anyone running an SSD needs to do something about "deleted" data. Mac OS X simply adds those blocks to the free pool, and does not clear them. This forces the SSD to continue to carry and replicate them as part of its much larger "superblocks", as if they were still valid.

One can periodically consolidate free space and immediately Zero the free space, but TRIM Enabler from groths makes a simple patch to enable TRIM for non-Apple SSDs.

Apple has not tested this with third-party SSDs, and does not endorse it. I have been running it trouble-free, but your mileage may vary. There are other TRIM solutions as well.

If you enable TRIM and then run Disk Utility ( Repair Disk ), an additional line appears in the ouput: TRIM-ing unused blocks (or similar). It is very satisfying.

I see that the Plextor M5 Pro extreme ships with a mounting bracket unsuitable for the MAc Pro sleds. I could use the Icy Dock or use the excellent New Technolgy adapta-drive 2.5" to 3.5 " bracket found on the OWC site.

I didn't know that most bracket adapters for the MAc Pro are very specific to the model year. The Newer Tech brand works with my 2008 (and 2006, 2007) There are 2 other configurations for the sleds, the 2009-2010 and the models up to today.

Why have these trays changed? What has changed?

How stable/safe is Trim enabler? The Plextor has a feature called "True Speed" that apparently prevents drastic performance drops after long term usage.

I didn't know that most bracket adapters for the MAc Pro are very specific to the model year. The Newer Tech brand works with my 2008 (and 2006, 2007) There are 2 other configurations for the sleds, the 2009-2010 and the models up to today.

Why have these trays changed? What has changed?

The early (2006-2008) Mac Pro has a separate daughter board for the four internal drive SATA connectors. This connects to the main logic board with a iPass cable. The later Mac Pro has the SATA connectors on the main board, so needs a longer drive tray to position the drives further back. I think there are only two tray lengths: 2006-2008 and 2009-2012.

Icy Dock and AdaptaDrive convert a 2.5" drive to the 3.5" format and contain a small SATA circuit board to move the SATA connector to the correct location for a 3.5" drive. There is only one size adapter since it does not include the Mac Pro tray. You provide the correct tray for your model of Mac Pro.

There are other adapters that do not use trays, but go directly into the Mac Pro tray slots and position the 2.5" drives so they plug directly into the Mac Pro SATA connectors without any SATA extension boards. They come in different versions for the early (2006-2008) or late (2009-2012) Mac Pros.

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